Friday, 3 August 2012

The waiting is nearly over. Santi Cazorla will be announced as an Arsenal player imminently after flying to London yesterday to complete his medical at Colney. He'll sign a four-year deal worth £70k a week and Arsenal will pay Malaga £16m to make the midfielder the Gunners record signing.

It's been a whirlwind of a week. We've seen the squad arrive back from their tour of Asia and Arsene Wenger is straight back into business mode with the Cazorla deal being tied up.

Signing a 27-year-old who is going into his peak years and is a double winner of the European Championship is a fantastic signing for the club. And it just goes to show that we do have ambition.

Maybe we don't go out and spend £50m on a striker. Instead buying Olivier Giroud, the top scorer in Ligue 1 last season, and Lukas Podolski, a player at 27-years-old who has more than 100 caps for Germany, for a combined fee of half of what Chelsea paid for Fernando Torres. Just because the fee paid isn't high doesn't mean it's not good business.

Cazorla is exactly the technical type of player we need. Someone who can come in and make those passes Cesc Fabregas used to for us. A year late, but Arsene Wenger has finally got his man.

I'd expect the announcement of the deal to take place before the weekend, provided someone can be found in Malaga to sign off the paper word.

The Spaniard will then join up with the rest of the squad at their pre-season training camp in Germany which starts on Tuesday. He's got just over a week and a half to bed in before the opening game of the season at home to Sunderland.

And what next? Real Madrid's Turkish midfielder Nuri Sahin that's who. On a season long loan. Sahin will join if Arsene Wenger really doesn't think Jack Wilshere can play much before Christmas.

Adding the 23-year-old to the Gunners ranks will be a good bit of business as well. We certainly need cover for Wilshere and Abou Diaby. And if Tomas Rosicky won't be around for the opening games, we don't know how long he'll take to recover and return to his best.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror are reporting Robin van P€r$i€ will join the rest of the first team squad at their pre-season training camp in Germany and could well get some minutes under his belt in their final pre-season game against Cologne on Sunday week.

That would be an interesting scenario. It's looking more and more likely that the Dutchman will start the season at Arsenal because none of the teams interested in him are prepared to match Arsenal's valuation.

Elsewhere, the Daily Mirror report Benik Afobe will spend the season on loan at Bolton.